So I am running an experiment on “luxury for less” direct to consumer behemoth Quince. I bought an entire capsule wardrobe and I intend to test 69 pieces to see if they are offering better options at better prices. I hope for a positive surprise but as the items arrive it’s hard to say how it plays out.
While others tried to conquer reaching consumers cheaply with branding, merchandising and clever user acquisition channels, Quince simply buys everything that is trending from a manufacturer and ships it to their customer.
They have no consistent brand viewpoint except what sells well nor are they trying to help a customer find a lifestyle fit. It is trying to be Costco but is it better and cheaper or just cheaper?
Let’s just say I ordered an amount of product that would have bought a cheap beater car when I was young. It’s a lot of clothing and it’s slowly trickling in and the odds seem stacked against the brand. I bought a clothing rack to keep it organized.
I know it’s eccentric but as the cover of Bloomberg Business week aptly put on its cover, it is the golden age of grift and I have a bit of the Anchorman “I don’t believe you” feeling about them.
The feeling arises with robocalls and suspicious emails, with too-good-to-be-true marketing claims and grotesquely inflated prices: We’re being scammed. Everything is a grift, and everyone is a grifter. Even when the latest scheme isn’t technically illegal, we’re left asking ourselves whether some force is working against us. If we have to ask at all, we probably know the answer.
I know enough about fashion, it’s sourcing, the approach to pattern work, merchandising, marketing and branding that I can spot the short cuts that plague seemingly every industry.
I could do this in cosmetics as well but the anchor buyers club in cosmetics is very much not a rip off. Beautypie consistently delivers on most of its merchandising and if you know beauty it will serve you well. I’m not seeing that at Quince yet but I’ve not done the work yet to be sure.
Obviously, the problem of grift extends much further than markups on beauty and fashion, but I’m not exactly in a position to solve, say, some of the claims being made by Silicon Valley frontier labs for artificial intelligence. Although I have done my very best to encourage sensible policy in my home state of Montana with our right to compute law.
I can’t fix crypto fraud or graft around Medicare, nor can I fix the broken immigration system or the way we handle disability for veterans. But I can tell you if someone is making claims about clothing that don’t match the reality. It’s an act of trying to reclaim some sanity though I may end up getting fleeced.